The Girl Next Door

by Emma Hart

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  COPYRIGHT

  THE ONE NIGHT STAND NEXT DOOR

  CHAPTER ONE – IVY

  CHAPTER TWO – IVY

  CHAPTER THREE – KAI

  CHAPTER FOUR – IVY

  CHAPTER SIX – KAI

  CHAPTER SEVEN – IVY

  CHAPTER EIGHT – IVY

  CHAPTER NINE – IVY

  CHAPTER TEN – KAI

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – KAI

  CHAPTER TWELVE – IVY

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – IVY

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – KAI

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - KAI

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN – KAI

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – IVY

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – IVY

  EPILOGUE – IVY

  THE END

  THE BOOKWORM’S GUIDE TO DATING

  SNEAK PEEK: KISS ME NOT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY EMMA HART

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

  Copyright © Emma Hart, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Emma Hart

  THE ONE NIGHT STAND NEXT DOOR

  Don’t miss the sexy prequel to The Girl Next Door! Get your copy now for free – click here!

  CHAPTER ONE – IVY

  Wet hair stuck between your thighs after a shower.

  If you’d asked me the worst part about being a woman three weeks ago—hell, even three days ago—that would have been my answer.

  Now?

  Now, my answer was very different.

  The three minutes it took for a pregnancy test to reach its determination about whether or not you were about to spend the next eight months incubating a tiny human?

  Hands down the worst part about being a woman.

  Not to mention the scariest. Peeing on that stick was simultaneously the most terrifying and most awkward thing I had ever done.

  And the messiest.

  Look, I wasn’t winning any awards for my aim with the pee, okay? My poor hand had been scrubbed red raw in the last sixty seconds, and I was sure as hell never going to yell at a man again for missing the toilet.

  As long as he cleaned it up himself.

  Needless to say that if I ever had to do this again, I was going to pee in a pot first. Less room for error and all that.

  I checked the timer on my phone.

  Ninety seconds left.

  Then I could pull the pee stick from the top drawer of my bathroom dresser where I’d unceremoniously dumped it to stop me from torturing myself.

  In reality, that hadn’t happened.

  For one, I knew. You know how you get that gut feeling that tells you someone is an asshole? Or that the chicken is off? Or that your best friend really did steal your blusher and isn’t giving it back?

  Yeah.

  I knew.

  My period was two weeks late. My boobs were so tender they hurt when I looked at them, and I could smell a coffee from a mile away.

  Speaking of that, I couldn’t stand the smell of coffee anymore.

  So yeah, I knew. I knew what the test was going to say, and I had no idea what I was going to do about it.

  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t considering anything other than keeping the little alien who was almost certainly growing in my womb. I didn’t believe in anything else, and weirdly enough, that wasn’t the scariest part about this.

  Nope. It would be telling my staunchly Catholic, Jesus-loving grandmother that I was pregnant. Unmarried. From a one-night stand.

  That was going to go well.

  Not.

  Not to mention the fact I would have to tell my next-door neighbor that our drunken, one-time escapade a few weeks ago had knocked me up.

  That was also not going to be fun. As far as I knew, Kai Connors had absolutely no intention of having children anytime soon. He’d spent weeks avoiding Amanda, a single mom in the building who had kids for no reason other than she had kids.

  But that was fine. If he didn’t want kids, I would move and figure it out by myself.

  I checked my phone again.

  Sixty seconds.

  I had no idea how this had happened, either. Sure, we hadn’t used a condom because we’d been drunk and I’d assured him it was fine, but I never ever missed a pill. It never crossed my mind this would happen. I was OCD about taking my pill. I took it out every single morning when I brushed my teeth and took it immediately after, and I’d checked the package every single day for a week while I’d built the confidence up to take this pregnancy test.

  All the days were clear. I’d taken it every day.

  Forty-five seconds.

  Oh, shit.

  I knew.

  The day my grandmother was rushed to the ER. That was it. That was the day. She swore she was dying but it turned out she was constipated. I’d taken my pill out, but now that I thought about it, I had no recollection whatsoever of taking it.

  It was so normal for me to do it that it’d never crossed my mind that I might have forgotten that I had not, in fact, taken it.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  It was all on me.

  Kai was going to kill me.

  I couldn’t not tell him. No matter what he did, he had the right to make a decision about what he wanted to do. But I also had to admit this was my fault. It was my mistake that had led to this.

  Thirty seconds.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe I’d been so damn stupid. I never should have said it was fine to do it without a condom. Such an idiot.

  Fifteen seconds.

  Really, by now, with our technology, it didn’t need to take three minutes for a pregnancy test to work its magic. Thirty seconds was all that was needed.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and paced the length of my bathroom. I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t know the first thing about babies. I had no idea how to change diapers or breastfeed or how to stop little humans running into roads.

  Oh, God, I was going to drop my baby, wasn’t I?

  My phone sprang to life. The high-pitched chirping of the alarm ricocheted off the walls, and I stopped the alarm that signified the end of the worst three minutes of my life before it made my headache any worse than it already was.

  I set the phone on the dresser and stared at the drawer that held the test. All I had to do was open it, flip the test over, and I’d get my answer. I would know one way or the other. I would know if it was a baby or just stress.

  After all, I’d read that sometimes the stress of worrying about pregnancy would delay a period, creating a vicious circle.

  Closing my eyes, I drew in a deep breath and tried to center myself. It didn’t work. My heart was pounding at a thousand beats a minute, and I swore I was going to faint.

  I grabbed the test from the drawer and perched on the edge of the bath.

  I was going to do this. I was going to look. I was going to find out.

  Right now.

  I opened my eyes and flipped the test.

  Pregnant, +.

  The answer blinked at me from the little digital screen. A lump formed in my throat as I stared down at the window.

  Yeah. I was going to faint.

  I sat on the floor instead and leaned against the side of the tub. Pregnant. Definitely pregnant. Six weeks, according to my calendar. Very definitely pregnant.

  Oh, shit.


  ***

  Tori blinked at me. “You’re actually pregnant?”

  I nodded, running my hand through the soft fur of her Ragdoll cat, Genevieve. “I took three tests after. They all said the same thing. Definitely pregnant.”

  “Holy shit.” She dropped onto the sofa next to me. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know, but if you don’t get that coffee away from me, I might throw up in it.”

  “Noted.” She grabbed the mug from the table and took it into the kitchen, even going so far as to drain the cold coffee down the sink and rinse it. “And it’s Kai’s?”

  “Yep.” I looked down at the cat who was happily purring under my methodical strokes. “And no, before you ask, I haven’t told him yet. I panicked and came here. Well, after I went to the drugstore two towns away and bought three more tests ‘for a friend.’”

  She rejoined me on the sofa, handing me a glass of ice water. “Are you okay, Ives?”

  Shrugging, I sank back into the soft cushions. “I really don’t know. I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet, you know? It’s like I knew, because everything added up, but it’s one thing to think it and another thing entirely to have it spelled out in front of you.”

  Tori squeezed my hand. “How did it happen? You’re so anal about your pill. There’s no way you’d forget. Did it fail?”

  I shook my head. “You know when Grams went to the hospital?”

  “Yeah. When she couldn’t poop.”

  “Yeah. I was doing my morning routine when I got the call. I definitely popped the pill because it wasn’t in the strip, but I must have knocked it into the sink and down the drain when I rushed to leave. Believe me, I got on my hands and knees this morning to look for it, and I couldn’t.”

  “Damn. Speaking of Grams…”

  “Don’t.” I stopped stroking Genevieve, much to her chagrin, and pressed my fingertips against my temples. “I don’t even want to think about telling her. She’s going to flip her shit. I’ll probably kill her with this news. Not only is her granddaughter having a baby, but it’s from a one-night stand outside of wedlock.”

  “Okay, well, let’s not think about her.” Tori patted my thigh. “You’ll just stress out, and you can’t do that right now. Let’s think about this methodically: have you called your doctor yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you want me to make you an appointment?”

  Tears filled my eyes as I nodded. If I spoke, I was going to burst into great hulking sobs that would make Kim Kardashian’s crying face look stunning. I just knew it.

  “Okay.” Tori slid a box of tissues over to me and grabbed her phone. “Let me call her now.”

  Thank God we’d had the same doctor for five years.

  I wiped my eyes while she gave our doctor the rundown and made me an appointment for Thursday morning.

  “Have you had any nausea yet? Vomiting?” Tori asked, the phone still plastered to her ear.

  “Bit of nausea, I think.”

  She relayed that followed by a string of “Mhmm,” “Okay,” “Yep,” and “No problems,” then hung up. “Right.” She turned back to me. “She said to tell you not to take ibuprofen, only paracetamol. Drink plenty of water, nap if you need to, and she’ll go through everything with you on Thursday. Do you want me to come with you?”

  “If Kai doesn’t. Yeah.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You think he won’t?”

  “I don’t know, Tori. I haven’t spoken to him in more than a week. In fact, I’ve actively avoided him because I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure.” I pulled Genevieve onto my chest and cuddled into her masses of soft, white fur. “I don’t know how he’s going to react.”

  “You know it’s going to be okay, don’t you?” She sat down next to me and stroked my hair gently. “Kai isn’t a bad person, and I have no doubt that he’s going to support you, Ivy. And if I’m wrong and he doesn’t, then, well. You’re not alone. You have me, and your parents, and my parents. It will be fine.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have a tiny alien growing in your uterus.”

  “Fair point. But that’s no excuse to be a bitch, you hear me? I’m not being your slave for nine months.”

  “Eight months, technically,” I replied. “And growing an entire human gives me a great excuse to be a bitch. It’s a fact.”

  She grinned. “You look tired. Do you have to work today?”

  “No. Kelly’s childminder had something come up so I switched shifts with her. I’m working Wednesday night instead.”

  “Are you sure you can do it?”

  “I’m serving drinks behind a bar, Tori, not moving rocks to build the pyramids. Besides, I’m going to have to tell my parents tomorrow.”

  “Does that mean you’re telling Kai today?”

  “I don’t have a choice.” I sighed, rubbing my cheek against the cat’s head. “If I’m telling my parents tomorrow, it means Grams will find out. And when Grams finds out, if it doesn’t kill her on the spot, she will happily announce to the entire town that her whore of a granddaughter got knocked up out of wedlock, and he’ll find out anyway.”

  “If she does that, I’ll beat her with a bible. A hardback one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I got your back.” Tori grinned. “I have to go run some errands, and you look exhausted. Do you want to crash here for an hour while I go out?”

  I didn’t want to bother her at all, but she was right. If I looked exhausted, it wasn’t a patch on how I felt. Physically, emotionally, mentally—I was ruined.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I didn’t mind before and I definitely don’t mind now. Do you want anything? I can swing by B’s and get sandwiches for lunch.”

  “A meatball sub,” I murmured, cradling her cat. “Extra cheese. Toasted. And salt and vinegar chips with a double chocolate chip cookie.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Ice-cream works, too.”

  “Let me guess, you’re eating for two now, so I can’t say no.”

  “No, I’m just a greedy bitch, but the state I’m in, I’ll probably cry if you don’t bring it back.”

  Tori shook her head, but her eyes sparkled. “Noted. I got it.”

  “Thanks. I’m taking Genevieve to bed.”

  She laughed as she pulled her shoes on. “Take her. She’s a snuggle whore. Just don’t steal her side of the bed.” With a wink, she grabbed her purse and left me alone in her apartment to take a nap with her cat.

  With any luck, how to tell Kai he was about to be a father would come to me in my dreams, because I was coming up empty.

  CHAPTER TWO – IVY

  Sadly, my dreams hadn’t given me any help at all. Not a single one during my two-hour nap had bothered to give me any tips for the conversation with Kai.

  A conversation that was rapidly approaching. I knew he got home from work at five-thirty every day, and it was now five-fifteen. I really didn’t have a lot of time to get my shit together.

  The first thing I did was open the food delivery app on my phone and place a dinner order for us both from the Chinese place we’d eaten at the night this whole thing had happened. I remembered what he ordered, so after I’d confirmed that delivery for six p.m.—with an extra side of crispy beef strips so he didn’t steal mine—I sat back on the sofa to wait.

  I figured it would be best if I just said it, then handed him the food.

  I still wasn’t sure it’d sunk in fully for me yet. Having the proof right in front of me was weird, and so was having to throw out all my coffee. I could smell it in the pods and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  I’d soothed that hurt somewhat by ordering one hundred and twenty hot chocolate pods from Amazon.

  God bless two-day shipping.

  Why one hundred and twenty? I had no idea. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time.

  It was going to be a long eight months. I wasn’t even sure if I could bring a baby into these apartmen
ts. The floors and ceilings weren’t the best, and the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt the lives of the crazy seniors who lived here.

  While I was sure they’d coo all over a baby, it was just another thing on my list that I’d tentatively titled, “Now What The Fuck Do I Do?”

  Time ticked by so slowly. I felt like a stalker listening out for the opening and closing of his apartment door, and when it came, signaling he was home, my stomach lurched.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t sick.

  I wasn’t sure I could deal with that today, too.

  The Friends opening scene hit my TV, and I recognized it immediately. It was the one where Rachel told Ross she was pregnant. I grabbed the remote and turned the channel with a derivative snort.

  The universe was just mocking me now, the shady bitch.

  There was nothing interesting on TV, so I went to take a shower. The water was hot and soothing, and some of my stress dissipated with the steam as it curled up and out of the cubicle.

  My phone alarm went off. That meant it was ten minutes until food and I’d already spent too long standing under this water, so I quickly got out and wrapped myself in towels. It took me minutes to change into clean leggings and a slightly oversized sweatshirt that said, “I’ve got a good heart, but this mouth…”

  It was a personal favorite of mine to wear to dinner with my grandmother.

  I towel-dried my hair and brushed it up into a topknot, securing it with a velvet scrunchie that was something out of my childhood.

  I was pretty sure it was Tori’s. I certainly had no intention of reliving the questionable fashions of the nineties.

  I was done just in time. Five knocks sounded at my door, and I answered it. Gratefully taking the food from the delivery guy, I grabbed a few bills from the bowl by the door and handed him his tip.

  With a smile, he left.

  Leaving me standing across from Kai’s door.

  It was now or never. I didn’t have a choice. I had to get this over and done with or I knew I’d never tell him.

  I grabbed my keys and shut the door behind me, pausing to lock it. My heart was pounding against my ribs, and I wasn’t sure if my nausea was from nerves or hormones. Or the Chinese food.